Photo: Jay Bianchi has been hanging art at Tyler Bishop’s new venue, So Many Roads. (photo provided by Tyler Bishop)
By Kyle Harris, Westword | Grateful Dead diehard Jay Bianchi is tired of being in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Adapting to the COVID-19 shutdown proved difficult for the entrepreneur, who has provided jam-band fans and musicians a home for their music for more than two decades, building community and occasionally “doing punches” with staffers and customers along the way.
Over the past few months, Bianchi’s bars Sancho’s Broken Arrow (741 East Colfax Avenue) and Be on Key Psychedelic Ripple (1700 Logan street) were both closed by the City of Denver for public-health violations. Then Be on Key caught fire, destroying much of Bianchi’s business and many of his personal belongings, including photographs of him with brother Phil Bianchi, who passed away in the summer of 2017.
A quarter-century of dreams appeared to be going up in smoke.
Then Tyler Bishop, a lifelong jam-band fan and restaurateur who had hung out at the various Bianchi venues over the years, reached out with an offer to buy Sancho’s Broken Arrow and Be on Key Psychedelic Ripple.
“He saw I was in a situation, and he decided to help me out,” says Bianchi. “He gave me a good price that works for me.”
While Be on Key won’t reopen under that name, Bishop plans to bring back Sancho’s. He’s still finalizing licensing and getting the bar set up; he hopes it will open in the next few weeks. But in the meantime, he has another big project under way.
Bishop is launching a new Bianchi-inspired venue, restaurant and brewery called So Many Roads in a 30,000-some-square-foot area of the Yard, a massive development at West First Avenue and Santa Fe Drive. Bishop will be renting Bianchi’s enormous collection of Dead memorabilia and posters for the place, and has recruited Bianchi to help decorate the new venue.
> > > > > > > > > >
Go here for the rest of the news:
https://www.westword.com/music/jay-bianchi-sanchos-broken-arrow-quixotes-grateful-dead-11766558